Death Spa

Oh Death Spa, what have you done? All those years I spent bad-mouthing slasher films from the 1980s, then you go and immediately make yourself one of my all-time favorite horror films by being one of the most cracked, absurd examples of horror film making one is likely to stumble across. It’s probably because you actually have less to do with the American slasher films that permeated the horror scene during that prolific decade and instead can count yourself the peer of batshit insane Italian horror films from the same decade. You are less Jason Vorhees and Friday the 13th and more Lamberto Bava and Demons. I loved you when in the first five minutes you gave me Ken Foree in micro-shorts, full frontal nudity, and attempted murder by steam room. But then you just kept piling absurdity on top of insanity, so that by the time we got to the frozen flying eel, I was willing to pledge my very soul to you.

Death Spa came out in 1990, and by then the slasher film had pretty much run its course. There were stragglers, sure; the Danger Dangers and L.A. Guns of the genre that arrived on the scene just as the sun was setting on it. Those that stuck around into the 1990s were sort of like the James Bond cash-in spy movies that came out in the 1970s. By that point, earnest (or crass, depending on your generosity) copycats had given way to tongue-in-cheek spoofs and films with no interest in taking seriously what was, for the most part, a pretty ludicrous premise to begin with. By that same token, the initially grim slasher films of the 1980s quickly gave way to genre entries that seemed a lot less grave in their take on the genre. Before too long, you’ve got Freddie Krueger slinging Borscht Belt one-lines, and everything is pretty much over but the curtain call. However, the tail-end of a genre’s popularity can also contain some of its most surprising efforts, and Death Spa emerges as such thanks to its willingness to go completely off the deep end without ever tipping its hand or suggesting that the film makers are taking things lightly. It combines pretty much everything the 1980s loved: aerobics, slashers, gore, neon, nudity, smug assholes in sweaters driving Porsches, Spandex, pink lit smoke…I don’t recall there being a scene of anyone snorting cocaine, but I’m sure I either missed it or it was planned and mistakenly got cut out of the final film.

Pleated jeans and tank top aficionado Michael (William Bumiller) is the owner of the most technologically advanced gym in the world. Everything in the gym is controlled by a central computer, which is itself controlled by twitchy programming genius David (Merritt Butrick, best known as either Johnny Slash from Square Pegs or Kirk’s son from Star Trek II & III). The entire concept behind the club makes almost no sense. I can understand controlling day-to-day operations with the computer — your swipe cards, fire control system, membership logs, and air conditioning. But why would you want the resistance on the weight machines controlled by a computer? Or the temperature of your shower? Or pretty much anything else? I suppose you’d want it to be controlled by the computer so that when the computer inevitably goes haywire, you can kill people in all sorts of ludicrous ways — though I’m not sure how that plays on an application for a business loan.

Michael is also haunted by a past tragedy in which his wife committed suicide after being crippled. David happens to be her twin brother, and he blames Michael for his sister’s death. When things start to go wrong with the club’s system — a sauna showers a woman with acidic fluid, a diving board breaks and almost kills a swimmer (why the hell would the screws on your diving board be computer controlled???), the obvious suspect is David, who both has a chip on his shoulder and is the sole employee who understands the ins and outs of the computer. But we the viewer know that something much stranger is going on, as the accidents at the club becoming increasingly deadly and increasingly difficult to chalk up to malicious computer hacking. Nude women are assaulted by ceramic tiles in the shower. A guy using the butterfly machine is killed in a way that demonstrates whoever came up with the kill had never touched an exercise machine and has no idea how they or the human body work. People start getting stabbed, cooked, and pretty much whatever else the movie can think of. Before too long, Michael begins to suspect that it’s not just the computer; the club might also be haunted by the vengeful ghost of his dead wife!

I might like Death Spa so much despite not really liking slasher films because it’s only partially a slasher film. It veers wildly from slasher to the killer technology/haywire computer type films that were popular in the 1980s (oh, Chopping Mall, we love you), and then throws in full-on supernatural shenanigans partway through. Oh, and a bit of Jaws, since one of the gym’s board members refuses to close the club despite all the deaths, because there’s the big Mardi Gras party coming up. Again I have to ask, wouldn’t multiple gory deaths, be they accidental or murder, sort of take the decision on whether to stay open out of the hands of the gym’s board of directors and place it in the hands of, you know, like some sort of local authorities? And would those authorities not consider assigning more than the one cop to a case so full of bodies? This must be the same town as in Terror on Tour.

I invoked the name of Lamberto Bava’s Demons earlier, and I think if Death Spa has any peer, it’s that completely absurd and gleefully weird horror film. Death Spa‘s finale, in which the gym goes completely batshit murderously insane, is full of surreal slow motion shots, pink smoke, and inexplicable neon lights. It looks exactly like something you’d expect from a dreamlike, surreal European horror film. And the scene in which a frozen eel flies around ripping out throats, or a woman gets her arm eaten by a remarkably persistent blender propel Death Spa into the advanced ranks of lunatic horror films, up there with the random helicopter from Demons, the confounding tutu dancing interlude of Hell of the Living Dead, or the flying refrigerated zombie head in Zombie 3.

And that’s only a sample of the mind-boggling nuttiness the movie is willing to throw onto the screen. It’s obvious that no one involved in the writing is taking anything seriously, but the final film handles every scenario, no matter how hilariously foolheaded, with total straight-faced gravity. No winking or self-awareness. Whatever preposterous situation screenwriters James Bartruff and Mitch Paradise (really? That sounds like a porn pseudonym) dreamed up during a writing session that had to involve a lot of booze and weed is presented to you in total seriousness. And that’s a beautiful thing. If this movie had been self-consciously jokey, I wouldn’t have enjoyed half as much. I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all. But the fact that it is willing to over-indulge to such a batty degree but refuses to crack a smile makes it a much sweeter confection to gobble down.

Most of the cast is disposable (and disposed of). The only actor who stands out as possessed of any talent is Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), who I wish the film used more. Merritt Butrick is OK, but I’ve never thought him to be a particularly good actor. There’s something too stilted about him, but he fits pretty well for nervous, unstable David. Michael is a dull hero. His bloodthirsty ghost of a wife (Shari Shattuck, Naked Cage and Desert Warrior) is all right but not nearly as memorable as the sundry deaths she orchestrates. Frank McCarthy is a suitably gruff and world-weary cop, and Rosalind Cash (Omega Man, Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde) puts in a welcome but minor appearance as his partner. Everyone else is overshadowed by their sweet gym wear and leotards, and they are present to either workout then get killed or get naked then get killed.

And in the realm of both kills and nakedness, you’ll be hard pressed to find an 80s horror film as willing to indulge in both. Death Spa trots out full frontal nudity during the credits (a sure sign of quality filmmaking in my book) and never really relents, serving up a steady stream of shower scenes, locker room scenes, and of course, in-gym bonking. This film being what it is, the nudity is handled entirely by the female cast, which is too bad. But there are some beefcakes in tight t-shirts, and like I said, Ken Foree does strut around topless in some shorts that would have been tiny on a small Japanese boy. So I guess you take what you can get. When it comes to offing the gym’s members, the film is equally enthusiastic. Initial kills are pretty subdued, but the film gets more and more daring as it runs. By the point where the guy is ripped in half by the weight machine, you know the film isn’t going to pull punches. And once we get tot he final third, it throws every notion of reserve or decorum out the window, abandoning itself to a veritable orgy of exploding heads, ripped limbs, and spurting gore.

If you appreciate outlandish horror, especially outlandish Italian horror, where any sense of realism or logic is mercilessly trod upon by a parade of blood-soaked craziness, Death Spa is one for the ages. It pulls no punches, and despite starting off like a typical slasher, it quickly goes off the rails and into directions that caught me totally off guard. It’s goofy to the core but doesn’t acknowledge its own goofiness. It revels in excesses of both gore and nudity while remaining delightfully “innocent” in its leering — no rapes or sexual assaults; just good clean sex, changing room, and shower scenes. Death Spa is very much a celebration of the excesses of 80s cinema, so absurd that it’s hard to be grossed out even if you are squeamish. Without any hesitation, I declare Death Spa to be a true classic.

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6 thoughts on “Death Spa”

Is that a pic of the computer? Did NORAD have a surplus sale? There’s a lot of blinking lights back there. At least there’s no tape drives, but by 1990 people’s idea of what computers looked like had changed.

Well, thanks for finally confirming for me the name of this movie. I saw it many years ago, and recall being highly amused by it, although at that age (mid-teens) nudity and bloody mayhem would’ve been more than enough for that. Your review has inspired me to hunt this down again and see what I think of it now.

Keith, you convinced me, and thank you for that. This is the kind of thing I’d normally never get involved with since the slasher craze hit right when I was in a deep depressive 13-16 year-old kid’s funk, i.e. post 70s-depression. And I also hated the whole spa and fitness craze, which ran concurrent, launched by Fonda’s best selling work out tape (back when pre-recorded tapes cost like $90) and spurred on by the sleazy ‘fitness’ filler on Showtime or Spotlight, or whatever… I forget man… in short, you inspired me to see this despite my aversion to death and spas, and I thank you… I hope

I watched this as part of an unintended double feature with Aerobicide (the copy of Death Spa I had was titled Witch Bitch). The whole brother/sister thing is truly whacked out as is sudden jump to full-on supernatural horror. What a delight!

Seen it a while back because I was intriqued by the trailer which wa son the video tape “Henry: Portrait of a serial killer”- TOTALLY campy and just plain bad- but delightful if you like that kind of thing. I really like the feel that it has. I am a lucky owner of a copy of this film:)